Legal Attire
by limonacide
Summary: "You want Nara as your defense? You're right, he's brilliant but that fucker will ruin you more than the Devil could." Shikamaru Nara is a man of few morals and an even looser conscience as Konoha's most infamous lawyer. He and Neji Hyuuga can free any criminal from the prospect of a sentence, whether they're guilty or not. R&R.


Title: Point Blank

Summary: "You want Nara as your defense? You're right, he is brilliant but that man will ruin you more than the Devil could." Shikamaru Nara is a man of few morals and an even looser conscience when it comes to defending his clients in court as Konaha's most infamous lawyer. He can free any criminal from the prospect of a sentence, whether they're guilty or not. As he handles his cases, he faces the consequences of his own self-destructive behavior on top of his gambling debt and cocaine addiction - along with the women who only burn him even further.

Author's Note: Based on the Austrailian show "Rake." All the chapters and cases are taken from the show but there will be some major differences.

Rated M for crude humor, mentions of sex, and plain assholery.

I don't really know how to classify this fanfiction because it isn't anything I've done before. It's like a paradoy alternate universe but actually kind of serious. Also, I'll bullshiting on the lawyer things so don't expect it to be accurate.

Still ediiting, probably will make this chapter longer but I want to see the reviews first.

* * *

 _Chapter One_

 _/_

 _"_ Christ, Shikamaru, what have you've gotten yourself into this time?" Her voice curled with amusement but was still lined with exhausted irritation along the sides, the type of voice she uses when he never fails to make her laugh and still disappoint her at the same time.

He closes his nostril with his palm, placing his bent wrist over his red-stained chin. He breathes heavily from the mouth, the corners of it bruised a faint purple from the heavy contact with a flying fist an hour ago. His eyes stare down at the silk dress that falls down her curves and hitches up in the right places. He almost forgets that he feels like Hell ran him over and tried running him over again to avoid paying the hospital bills.

"The same shit I've always been into," he mutters casually with the usual apathetic tone that had condemned him to the talent of infuriating others.

Ino back to the wall, holding the door open to let his beaten body enter her room and reminds him to take off his shoes. He's dripping blood to the tacky faux fur carpet. He told Ino to get rid of it multiple times until she pushed him down onto it and fucked him right then and there to shut him up. He didn't utter a single complaint about any of her furniture choices after that, despite how much it looked like a crossover between a girl's sweet 16 birthday party and a florist shop. He didn't understand how she made any money by bringing men down here when his first reaction was to call back his former client of an arsonist for a favor to burn down the entire fucking brothel. She says all the innocent feminity makes them leave faster. He calls it bullshit; the only reason why a man would leave a beautiful woman is that staying too long would make his wife suspicious.

Good thing he's divorced.

He rests on her bed, tilting his head back and puts his tired hands over his stomach, his fingers tracing over the memory of kicked ribs. The trail of blood then dribbles down to the collar of his dress shirt, which was already stained. Shikamaru closes his eyes, the last thing he sees is a peak of Ino's bare ass connecting to those man-murdering legs on their way to the bathroom. It's a second of peace before she ruins it like every woman does - ruining a perfectly good moment with a question meant to start or end things.

"Why are you wasting money on me when you should be paying them back?"

He almost laughs, _I haven't paid my taxes either._

Her pretty blonde hair falls from her face, her arms pressing over torso - _fuck_ , fuck, fuck _, damnit woman it hurts_ _-_ \- as she reaches over to clean the mess that made him look more like a victim of a railroad incident rather than a gambling addiction. She retreats back once she realizes his grimace is from compressing pain rather than the question. "Sorry," she smiles sheepishly. He holds onto the crumpled towel under his noses before she quickly slides rolled toilet paper into his nostril. After he looks presentable enough for a hooker, she lies down with him with the same tired movements. She grabs his arm and cradles it over her shoulder, her head tilting over his chest. She turns to where she almost kisses his collarbone, "you didn't answer my question."

"Am I on trial? I don't know why you care anyway. As long as I pay you, does it fucking matter?" He replies back, a bit too cold for Ino not to take personally, but he's not _wrong._ Shikamaru just wants to see her, not talk about his faults because he can just go back to his ex-wife and get a two-hour lecture there.

Ino pushes her lips back into a thin line and looks like she just popped a lemon candy in her mouth, underestimating how sour it would be.

"We've been doing this for three years, asshole. I don't play nurse with just any of my clients."

Shikamaru stays silent, knowing that how easily he can fuck up the one relationship he wants to stable in. He decides, for once, to let things go and ignore how personal and close they are to the truth. He turns over, his fingers roaming under the bed to find the edge of a familiar wooden box. Pulling out a chess set, he sets it between them and a small smile is shared.

"You don't play chess with them either. Are you up for another round?"

Over the years, he noticed Ino laughed in a very specific manner. She bites her bottom lip and looks down before she lets out a soft giggle that makes all men in those movies irrationally fall in love with her in a split second. It's stupid, but he sees the appeal.

"I don't even know why I play with you. I'm utter shit at chess." She jabs a finger at his chest with too much force that he actually winces but he smirks anyway. Ino was good in many things, especially with that tongue, but she was truly utterly shitty at the game. But even when Ino wasn't good at something, she did it again until she was or at least when she looked at the board with a focused determination, she could trick anyone into thinking that she was.

By the second round, he leans in and kisses her because he's too exhausted to play chess but not exhausted enough his primal urges have disappeared. Ino kisses back, soft and slow but still feisty by sneaking in brave little nips. She twists under, pulling him on top of her and suddenly, he feels like he's aged twenty more years cause his head hurts from all the motion and the probable concussion was the probable fucking cause. He can see all the bones in his body shift and feels the skeleton in him is grinding against his muscles - it's a pure agony but he continues because Ino has always been painkiller he needs.

Just as he's about to discard his clothes and hers into the floor, there's the buzz of his cell phone that interrupts the sounds of desperate moans - and kills the mood he built up from two rounds of chess and sexual tension.

 _Goddamnit._

They both pause as he pulls the phone, his blase expression crossing over Ino's slightly pissed off frown.

"It's Neji." _Poor bastard can't have is own sex life, he's gotta interfere with mine._

"Come back to me when you win the case. I'll treat you afterward."

"I'll hold you onto that," he smirks and gathers his clothes under his armpit, the other hand holding the phone with a crooked neck. His tie remains loose around him to which Ino tightens it like always. She hated how casually he wore his suits, always shitting on how he might as well be a presentable man if he's going to work either drunk or suffering from a neurosis caused by constant hangovers.

"All the lawyers do," she says as she gives him another kiss on the cheek.

Shikamaru leaves, smacking two hundred dollars onto her coffee table.

/

"What the fuck do you want, Neji? At this ungodly hour?"

"At this ungodly hour, you would have been either drinking, having intercourse, or getting physically beaten in an alleyway." Neji's voice is rimmed with deadpanned sarcasm and Shikamaru doesn't understand how the man ever landed a wife.

"Well, tonight, I decided to go for the lottery and shoot for all three."

"That's wonderful, Shikamaru. But do clean yourself up when you arrive at the police station. Lee has been charged with drug possession."

 _"What?" P_ erhaps the last line of coke has gone down to clog his ears instead of the blood-brain barrier he typically aims for. He remembers Rock Lee as a family friend of Neji's and has seen him multiple times from all parties he's respectfully shown up drunk to. The man is as pure as a church minister without the little schoolboy rape charges. _Jesus Christ, give me an adult who isn't on drugs,_ he thinks with disbelief.

"I'll pay for your cab. Just come as soon as you can."

Shikamaru closes the call, shaking his head as he tries to muster the thought of Lee with a rubber band around his arm and a needle down the vein. He laughs a bit, figuring Lee was probably a steroid-kind of guy.

/

Lee wasn't a steriod-kind of guy.

He was a steriod-the-fucking-way guy.

Neji was sitting next to Lee, his hands on his forehead looking down like he's about to give up on every single religion. Lee has that sorry look on his face but he doesn't know what he's sorry for - his eyebrows are stabled together in confusion rather than the acknowledgment that he _truly_ fucked up. Shikamaru walks in the private room where investigators usually twist someone's balls to get an answer they want but Neji pulled the lawyer-client privileges act faster than he pulls his credit card when it was his turn to pay. The man is so filthy rich that someone needs to drown him and take the money for him - better have a crazy son of a bitch spend the money rather a man who does nothing with it. Shikamaru would gladly do it.

"So tell me, how the hell did you get caught with enough steroids to kill eighty elephants?" The Nara pulls the chair up front, gliding into the seat with dead-set eyes on Lee, whose sweating at the corner of his forehead and into his ears. He makes a single conclusion from Lee - that he's a _virgin._ A _prison virgin_ who's never been charged with a crime and who's downright terrified by the future possibility of dropping the soap.

"I-I..sell them and most of my customers go to my gym so I just left them in my locker to-"

"-to do what? Fucking pull-ups? One-arm push-ups? Drug dealers work on streets, not first-class gyms for men who are insecure about their own masculinity," he cuts off. Right from all the first sentence, he's tired of his client. His personal best; usually, he gets annoyed by the fifth sentence. It might be a headache and soreness that left him more than the dick he already was.

"Nara, we don't have time for your criticism." Neji is tired, between Lee's naivety and his partner's cynicism. Shikamaru snaps his head back, his pale lips shaken down into a slight frown.

 _I get paid for my criticism._

Neji sighs and has his hand slide against his face trying to wipe off the exhaustion.

"Lee has already explained the situation to me. He sells the drugs at the gym as a dealer. He's got a couple of friends in the medical field who gave him access to extra cash on the side. If he gives up the names of his suppliers, then he might have a chance to walk free."

Lee bites his lip, almost as if he wants to say something.

"Too easy. He'll still get jail time for drug possession - a year at least - and those companies will hire tough lawyers to fight against those allegations. They'd want to keep their reputations clean as a junkie can get. And in the end, he was selling them and by the looks of it, using them too."

"If they know he was using, then they'd put him out an unreliable and will do just about anything to get back steroids if free of charge. The jury won't trust him."

"Exactly."

"Then what do you propose?"

Shikamaru turns to Lee, giving him a twisted Chesire grin that unsettles the men's stomachs.

"The jury doesn't have to trust you. They just have to pity you."


End file.
